


West Coast Buddies

by Kymopoleia



Category: DCU, Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Cute Kids, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, commission, this is my fave and i LOVE IT
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-02
Updated: 2016-11-02
Packaged: 2018-08-28 14:15:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8449453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kymopoleia/pseuds/Kymopoleia
Summary: When have young justice reconnaissance missions ever ended at just snooping around?





	

The mission itself was relatively straightforward. Go to the island, don’t let anyone see you, and figure out if there was any kind of activity going on to explain the peculiar readings. Batman had expressed some concern over a disparity in this projected number and the actual result, then blah blah blah, then Canary had turned to Cassie and Jaime- the only two who were there, hanging out and cuddling and working on homework- and suggested they do a solo mission. And, because it was supposed to be a simple go, look, and come back home, they said yes.

It wasn’t a simple go, look and come back home. It never was, with the team.

“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” She whispers, hand sliding down to pull her lasso free.

Jaime nods. “I thought Riddler didn’t leave Gotham?”

“I thought no one ever left Gotham. Robin included.” That earned a snort, but no answers.

“Let’s get a bit closer.” Jaime replies after a second, letting his wings retract and his feet fall to the dirt with a soft thump. “I heard he’s pretty harmless.”

“Well, as harmless as someone from Gotham can be.” Cassie steps forward first, lifting a hand to tap her ‘W’ and activate the stealth tech. “You know they’re all nuts.”

“Yeah, must be an east coast thing.” He lifts a fist and she, smiling, bumps it.

They begin to follow the tunnel towards the center of the building, walking close enough for their hands to brush. The only things they could hear were their footsteps, their soft breathing, and the soft music playing up ahead. There had been a big window that they’d seen Riddler from, but to get a better idea of the facility they’d have to see more of it.

The building was decrepit, a phantom from the island’s short tenure as a tourist trap in the sixties. Now all the buildings were rotten from the inside out and totally gutted, the inhabitants having moved on to bigger and better traps, the companies long bankrupted or grown too large to care about the island.

There’s a cracking sound up ahead, and Jaime grabs Cassie’s hand, stopping her. “Wait…” he whispers, narrowing his eyes. “Are we sure we should be going down here? We could just report back to- to Bat and Canary. We don’t have to stay here and get caught.”

Cassie slid her hand up his wrist to gently hold his forearm, leaning forward. “Come on Blue, have more of a sense of adventure. If we can tell them exactly what’s happening, maybe we’ll get paired together more. Then we won’t have to sneak around just to do homework together a couple nights a week.”

Jaime nods and leans closer to brush his lips against her forehead, the gentle action sending blushes over both their cheeks.

She turns back to walking, one hand on her lasso and the other on his. They could do this.

Until, of course, they couldn’t.

“Wow, puddin, we got visitors!” The thick jersey accent is the only warning before a massive hammer slams into the wall right above their heads, sending a loud cracking noise and rubble down and into their faces.

Cassie ducks sooner but Jaime’s armor protects him better, the dust blinding her but merely inconveniencing him.

“What? What are they?” The voice echoes through the halls, a voice that is very definitely not the Riddler’s, but is from Gotham.

Jaime and Cassie share a look before she’s swinging her lasso, Jaime is leveling a blaster at Harley.

“What? Don’t like the doorbell?” She laughs, towering over them in an impressive pair of heels and her typical full body jumpsuit. “Maybe I should ring it again!”

The woman lunges again, but they both jump back towards where they came from. The building groans in protest at the abuse of its facilities, but goes generally ignored by everyone. 

“We aren’t really staying!” Cassie yells back, flying back at a reasonable speed and trying to keep an eye on both the madwoman and where she was going. It was proving much more difficult than expected, but obviously it wasn’t expected to be easy. “No need to bring out the cavalry!”

Harley laughed and jumped over a blast from Jaime, still unnaturally fast. “You’re cute! But you’re like the girlscouts at the door, we don’t want any of what you’re selling.”

“We aren’t selling anything!” Jaime ducks under a hanging light, the door to the building close. “We were just looking!”

“And that’s the problem with you hero kids! Looking where you shouldn’t!”

Cassie gets out the door first, dodging and looking for a good time to use her lasso. Unfortunately she forgot about the building across the street, and crashes into it shoulders first. She hits the back wall and sends the roof crashing down, and she ends up stuck under the heavy time-weathered rocks and debris.

Jaime shoots at the doorway and causes it to collapse, hopefully long before the crazy Gothamite reached it. When he falls to his feet though, he doesn’t see her.

“Hello?” He calls, scanning the street. Then he remembers that they need to be quiet and quick, and starts walking around. “Wonder girl?” He calls quietly.

“Jaime, wrecked building.” She calls back, wincing and sitting up slowly. The debris that had been on top of her head and shoulders was mostly small stuff, leaves and branches. But there was a few big pieces of cement and larger, mostly whole pieces of wood. When she tries to shift, she finds that it’s too heavy for her, which isn’t very easy to do. “Help?”

Jaime recognizes the haphazard building and rolls his eyes at himself, using his wings to go in from above carefully. “Wonder girl? What’s the problem?”

“I’m stuck, I can’t get leverage to lift myself up.” She gestures at the blanket-like assortment of rubble. “Help a girl out? And quick, so we don’t run into the crazies again? I don’t think we’re qualified to fight them yet.”

Jaime lowers himself down and starts moving things, relying on the scarab to move some of them. When he gets to the last, biggest piece, he has to put everything into moving it. “You weren’t kidding,” He huffs, wincing at the sight of her ruined pants. “Are your legs okay? Can you stand?”

He offered a hand and helped her up, but a quick test lovingly called ‘barely putting your foot down for a second and then gasping in pain’ showed the answer.

“Ah, no.” Cassie shifted to balance on one wobbly foot, digging her nails into his armor. “But… I’m not sure I can fly either. I haven’t tried doing it while hurt before.”

Jaime nodded. “Hey, put your arms around my neck. Yeah, like that.” When they were in place, he put his hands under her thighs and hiked her up, wincing only a little bit at suddenly supporting all of her weight.

“No funny business! Put me down!” Cassie squeaks, pulling back a bit even as she tightens her legs around his waist and squeezes his neck tighter. “We need to figure out a way off the island.”

“Well, yeah. This is the best way off. I’m going to carry you…?” Jaime called the wings back, slowly lifting them both up. It was a bit of a struggle at first, but then he got the hang of it and held them there.

“Fine.” Cassie leaned into him. “Get me home safe.”

Jaime kissed her forehead again, rolling his eyes. “Of course I will.”

“Can’t believe we thought that was the Riddler…”

“Being fair, he was in green and wearing a bowler hat.”

Cassie snickered. “And we’re from the west coast.”

“And we’re from the west coast.” He agrees, lifting off into the night.

-

“I hate hospitals.”

“They’re not so bad.”

Cassie leans her head onto Jaime’s shoulder, nose scrunched up adorably. “I really really hate hospitals.”

“They’re good for you. Really.”

“I know, but that doesn’t mean I have to like them.”

“No, I guess you don’t.” Jaime smiles softly and squeezes her hand.

They’d made it off the island fine, and reported quickly. But then they’d been sent to the local hospital, and then they actually had to wait because emergency rooms were more of a ‘we’ll see you eventually’ place than a ‘oh, your ankle was crushed by fallen debris doing reconnaissance to save our asses! Let’s get on that immediately.’ Very dissatisfying.

Atleast they were together and the single couch was big enough for her to stretch her leg out all the way and cuddle with him. Win-win.

“So.” She says after a few minutes, lifting her head and glancing down at her leg. There was an ice pack on it, but that was the extent of the medical care she was getting right now. It had been reduced to a dull, annoying throb, which was kind of better than the searing pain that happened any time any weight was put on it. If she knew how to fly without touching her feet to things, even on accident, it wouldn’t be a problem- except it might still be. Not like she could fly at school! No, secret identities had to be kept and she wouldn’t be able to do anything like that.

“So?” Jaime replied, shifting comfortably. He’d been in and out of hospitals as a kid, all his friends were always finding some way to hurt themselves on this or that stunt, and he was no exception. The nurses back home would bat at his head with clipboards and cluck their tongues and tell him that one day they wouldn’t get him in time, and he’d tease them back and learn the latest gossip. The hospital in this town was a weird one. It was smaller than he was used to, and none of the nurses seemed to be gossiping despite it getting pretty late at night. Where was the sense of procrastination? Where was the need to update each other on drama?

“You never finished your drama homework.” Cassie lifts a finger and taps his nose. “And I never finished my bio worksheets.”

“Well, they can wait. Doing homework and getting hurt would be too cruel.” Jaime blows air at her finger. “We’ll get to it eventually. We’re both benched until someone’s ankle is fine again.”

“Psh,” She makes a disbelieving noise. “As if. I’ll kick their asses. I’ll kick anyone’s ass. I’ll use a crutch to do it too!”

“So you think you’ll need crutches?”

They both startle at the sound of the nurse, standing in front of them with a plastic clipboard and an amused smile on her face, a wheelchair by her side.

Cassie sits up slowly, blushing. “I don’t know, it hurts pretty bad. Is it my time?”

“Yes ma’am, the kid with the straw stuck in his nose is fine.” She nods to where the family walking out the door, who’d monopolized a lot of the nurses with his adorableness and mistakes. “And everyone else. We’re ready for you now.”

Cassie glances between the wheelchair and the couch, then back at the wheelchair, then at the nurse and, finally, Jaime. He gets the message and carefully stands to help her shift to the wheelchair, miraculously avoiding any bumping of her foot with anything.

They make it to the small room determined to be Cassie’s, making small talk. They make up a story about sneaking into an abandoned building (not entirely untrue) and the nurse laughs, shaking her head about young love and making them promise to keep out of trouble next time. Then Cassie gets put in for x-rays to see how the damage is, and Jaime settles in at her side to keep her calm.

“Your mom is gonna kill me.” He whispers, and she snickers so hard her foot shakes.

She might have left a couple bruises with the x-ray, but he left her face redder with every joke he made to ease her nervousness. After just a couple of hours, she was fine and a cast being eased on, her hatred of hospitals sated for now. Maybe one good experience wouldn’t fix a lifetime of fears, but it was a start.

“Well, come back in a week and we’ll change it, and then two after that we should be able to get it off. Keep cold packs on it while you’re awake and keep it elevated, and then when you’re ready to get back to walking normally again we can set you up with a closer gym for some minor therapy. I’ll leave you to it, be back with the crutches.” The nurse winked at them, her smile having grown familiar.

Jaime laughed quietly and settled into the chair as soon as she was gone, fingers still locked with Cassie’s. “I didn’t think we’d ever get to be alone again.”

Cassie laughs too and brings her knee up to rest her head on- the uninjured leg, the injured one was stiff and not in the mood to cooperate. “Me neither. But… I like her.”

“See? Hospitals aren’t so bad.”

Cassie sighs again, rubbing her thumb against his hand, trying to bring more warmth back to the cold digits. “Yeah, I guess. But they’re only okay because I’m with you.”

“Hm… I’m not the only thing making this better.” Jaime amends. “The nurse definitely helped.”

“No, it was all you. I wouldn’t have had the courage to talk to her at all, but it came so easily with you… you’re like the nurse whisperer or something.”

Jaime laughed, shoulders shaking and eyes closing as he shakes his head. “What? No,” He fights off chuckles and the scarab in his head, asking why she had phrased it like that. “No. I’m just good at this.”

“Yeah, you are.” Cassie nods, looking back at her ankle.

“Sorry about that. I should have gotten there sooner.”

“No, no, my ankle was gone like, the second it got hit.” She shook her head. “I mean, me wriggling under the rocks didn’t help, but it wasn’t really… it wasn’t something that could have been prevented. Well, I could have watched where I was going, but that wasn’t an option either.”

Jaime squeezed her hand again. “I’m still sorry I didn’t get there sooner.”

“Stop apologizing about it, it happens.” Cassie sat up straighter, all evidence of fatigue melting away. “I can be a big girl and admit when something’s my own fault.”

Jaime feels a smile quirking. “I know, and I kind of like that.”

She snorts. “Dork. Come here and kiss me before I change my mind.”

He stands up and does, because he’s no idiot.

The kiss is slow and sweet, layered under tiredness and sloppiness and inexperience, but it’s nice nonetheless. They both feel like they’ve earned it, despite the scolding they’ll get for being this late getting home. His hand slips into her hair and gets lost in the knotted golden blonde, her nails running over his arms and pushing up into his hoodie’s sleeves, scraping over skin and sending shivers down his spine.

 _Could you try not to think so loudly?_ The scarab interrupts, and Jaime ignores it.

It was an awkward bend though, hurting his neck to crane down and hurting her ankle when she dug her heel into the uncomfortable hospital bed. They break apart when it’s too much, catching their breath and staying in each other’s spaces.

“Hey Jaime?”

“Yeah wonder girl?”

She snickered and hit his chest.

“Fine. Cassie?”

“Do you want to sign my cast?”

Jaime pulled back, serious look on his face. “Seriously? I get to be the first?”

Cassie nods. “And you have to put a heart on it!”

“Psh, what kind of boyfriend do you take me for! Get me a sharpie, I’ll cover it in hearts!”

Their giggles echo into the hall, and the nurse decides to give them a little bit more time before she interrupts to let them know they can go home.

**Author's Note:**

> this was a commission for the lovely wombatking on tumblr, and if you're interested in commissioning me i'm on spookyghostnerd and mango-chess on tumblr! this was so much fun to work on and i adored it.


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